Arts This Weekend at the Movies
posted by on June 15 at 14:30 PM
SIFF this weekend is a pigpile of world premieres and awards and a peculiarly Polartec version of glamour. If that doesn’t appeal to you, here’s what’s on tap in the normal theaters.
In On Screen this week: Fresh from SIFF, a tale of brutal facial disfiguration gone disgustingly right—David Schmader reviews Crazy Love. Josh Feit geeks out on refreshingly square girl detective Nancy Drew.
I coldheartedly question the necessity of the local production Inlaws & Outlaws, a feel-good gay marriage doc that plays like a PSA. Andrew Wright gets pumped about Johnny To’s newest, Triad Election (not quite as good as SIFF’s Exiled, but close enough). And Lindy West digs the infanticide fantasy, hates the Utilikilt, in the Aussie update of Macbeth.
There are some fabulous limited runs this week too.
At Northwest Film Forum, the coolest rock-n-roll documentary ever made: D.A. Pennbaker’s Don’t Look Back.
Look out for sure.
And more sick attitude over at Grand Illusion, with the fantastic 1969 film If…, by Lindsay Anderson, about armed rebellion at a middling British public school. Especially if you were able to catch Jean Vigo’s Zéro de conduite at SIFF Cinema this spring, you should not miss this sizzling, angry, homoerotic update on the theme of schoolboy mutiny. The following still is in black and white, but most of the movie is in color. At first you think the black and white is for stodgy scenes and people (the first time it crops up is when the camera follows a new teacher up to his cold bare garret), but then you realize it’s willfully random.
And next Wednesday, there’s a great lineup of experimental docs at the Henry’s Artists’ Cinema series, including shorts by Jem Cohen, Matt McCormick, and featured filmmaker Brian Doyle.
See Get Out for all your Movie Times needs. See you after SIFF!
If you miss "if..." it finally comes out on DVD in a deluxe Criterion Edition next Tuesday. It was supposed to come out a long time ago but then Columbine happened.
The black and white sequences were the result of budget limitations. But Anderson knew this ahead of time and chose what scenes should be shot in B&W deliberately.
Well, I actually have the Criterion edition, and according to the introduction by David Ehrenstein, the cinematographer Miroslav Ondricek told Anderson he "couldn't guarantee color consistency in the chapel scenes."
Ehrenstein goes on: "Anderson liked the way they looked so much that he told the DP, "I'll just shoot a few other scenes in black and white when I feel like it. And thus If... goes from black and white to color and back again without any apparent reason--the result underscoring the fact that we're watching a movie, not life, and giving the movie the resonance of a half-remembered dream." [The quotations are not sourced.]
Doesn't sound like budget limitations per se, but they could be glossing over the fact. Where are you getting your info?
@1 AW: [quote] I coldheartedly question the necessity of the local production of "Inlaws & Outlaws", a feel-good gay marriage doc that plays like a PSA. [unquote]
And in 25 words or less, your point would be??? How about "straightheartedly question"? "Necessity" - would that be that it was programmed in the film festival or that it was even made? Shall we return to the tragic-ending stuff then - e.g. "Boys in the Band" - "City and the Pillar". Haysoose Mariah...get in the reel whirled, honey.
@3: My point would be: Read the 300-word review. Jesus, people, I LINK FOR A REASON. Here, for your convenience, is another link. Have at it.
You expect us to read? Next thing you know you'll want us to actually think ..
Annie, someday you may become "a dang cute old lesbian" and then perhaps you'll understand the importance of this movie. Your recent photo in these pages oddly does not reflect your mean streak. Goldurn photoshoppers...
Thank you so much for mentioning If....! I almost certainly would have missed it otherwise, and I've been wanting to see it in a theater for something like 15 years now.
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